America the Multilingual

America the Multilingual

“..it will be the single largest act of defiance we can make today towards a past that tried to kill us off.” -- Xh'unei - Lance A. Twitchell

A recent
article appearing on HuffingtonPost.com by Lance A. Twitchell, an assistant
professor of Alaska Native Languages, discusses the importance of preserving
Native American languages. He says that all Native languages are in
"extreme danger" and that some will be gone in the next decade,
unless people begin the arduous task of saving them." As people of nations and cultures, we
need to speak our languages,” said
Twitchell. In order to stop them
from dying, we only need to speak them: in our homes, to our children, to each
other, on our land. It will redefine who we are, and it will be the single
largest act of defiance we can make today towards a past that tried to kill us off.
We can redefine ourselves as multilingual and become leaders for the rest of
the nation. We can teach ourselves so many things about our ancestors, our
children, our land, and ourselves." Read his full article, titled
"America the Multilingual" at HuffingtonPost.com